Title

Mark's Memory Madness

Problem Scenario

The relevance of doing this project is that I want to know if the size of a class affects learning.

Broad Question

How does Anxiety affect memory?

Specific Question

How does Audience Size affect short term memory?

Hypothesis

It is Hypothesized that the Audience Size will cause a negative impact on peoples memory.

Graph of Hypothesis

Variables

Independent Variable: Audience Size

Dependent Variable: Memory

Variables That Need To Be Controlled:

Complexity

Time of Day

Vocabulary List That Needs Explanation

Complexity= How hard is the actual thing that is memorized.

General Plan

For this experiment, there will be one person in front of an audience assembled in a classroom. The person will have to memorize a series of numbers read aloud to them, and then recite them back. The goal of this experiment is to see how well people can remember things under the stress of having an audience.

Potential Problems And Solutions sizes

Some problems could be no one wanting to be a victim of memory.Depending on the age and height of the person it may depend on the memorization skills.
They may get embarrassed and they refuse to do another trial. Boy or Girl. They could get so worked up they meltdown. They may get embarrassed and they refuse to do another trial.

Safety Or Environmental Concerns

Some safety concerns may include them being too scared and they vomit.

Experimental Design

What is your Experimental unit?

Individual Persons Memory

Number of Trials:

7 Audience sizes with 10 people in each trail. 70 trials

Number of Subjects in Each trial:

I Will be using a person and their memory.

Number of Observations:

10 subjects
7 Audience Sizes
70 Observations

When will the data be Collected?

The data will be collected in Mid February.

Where will the Data be collected?

The data will be collected at school in a Classroom.

Resources and Budget Table

Item	Number needed	Where I will get this	Cost
Poster Paper	1	Staples	5.00
People	a bunch	School	Free

Detailed Procedure

Step one:In order to conduct this experiment there has to be a certain number of people in a room (ranging from 5-30).
Step two: Then (one person at a time) will perform the numbers needed memorized to the audience. They have 20 seconds to memorize.
Step three: There will be one person on the stage with an audience size ranging from 0-30.
Step four: They will recite the numbers needed to recite.
Step five: I will count the numbers they remember.

Photo List

Time Line

Data Table

Data Analysis

All Raw Data

See data table

Graphs

Photos

Results

My results prove that the data was very inconsistent and varied. Its was hard to get all my test subject in at the same time of day everyday for seven days. For instance there were more people that remembered more digits when there were less people in the audience. There were people that had no memory skills at all and therefore that messed up my graph of consistansy.

Conclusion

My hypothesis was that Audience Size will cause a negative impact on peoples memory. Turns out that wasn't necessarily true, because the data was very inconsistent, but it also showed that it was about the same when more people were in there. It was most likely only because they din't realize the extra 5-10 people when there is already around 20 people in the room.

Discussion

My science fair project didn't show many patterns in general. I believe it was inconsistent based on the attitude of the person and how they were feeling that day, therefore there wasn't any correlation, although as more people filled the room it changed a bit. Most didn't want to embarrass them selves, so they tried very hard and that would be why the data varied. I really wasn't able to answer the question because of the inconstant data. The data did contain errors, mostly the largest one was I had to use the average for my data because the test subject didn't show up every single day. Some missed from 1 to 2 days and some missed up to 5 days. This definitely could be a possible way to help our world because it is based on short term memory, which is so much like school, in school you are forced to remember as much as you can on one topic and it isn't as easy as it seems. This data could be used by so many more people and it could show what the average for a class size SHOULD be. Many schools and even offices could use this for presentations and class sizes. This project could be more advanced in many ways. One way, you could even have more test subjects and even more audience members for even more accurate data. Another way you could make this project more elaborate would be to have people of all ages do this project. My project helps society in countless ways including knowing how many people it is perfect to have in an audience when giving a speech or even a presentation.

Benefit to Community and/or Science

The benefit to the community and science is that people could use this for preparing for a speech or even a presentation. There are many ways this could be used.

Background Research

Anxiety can impact Memory greatly. For starters it can make people worried and could cause some butterflies to the stomach and a beat red face. It can take only .3 seconds to see a word or a number and remember it, but the person could easily forget depending how much the stress can impact the person. Some are scared to even talk in front of others. Also a few people might have had a bad experiences talking in front of others.
Some might feel as if with more of a crowd they will do better because they don't want to make a fool of themselves.

Many people will even slouch. Nervousness can be shown by shaky voice, blushing, dry mouth, racing heart, sweating, nausea and stuttering It is very important that you make sure that your test subject doesn't have stage fright because it is somewhat critical for some people. Your pupils might possibly dilate meaning get larger on may even turn a different color.

Many might get a rush of adrenaline and might possibly not even be able to say a word therefore they won't succeed in memorization. Most importantly the digestive system shuts down, when they say shut down they mean there is nothing going on in your stomach. Therefore that would be exactly why some people may get butterflies in their stomach and even nausea. The energy in your body will either race or basically shut down, when a body's energy basically shuts down it produces a shaky voice and speed talking. When your energy rapidly speeds up it causes nausea and an adrenaline rush which will produce a possible fainting activity.

References

"Short-term Memory." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 03 Oct. 2013. Web. 2 Mar. 2013.
"Short Term Memory Research." Short Term Memory Research. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Mar. 2013.
"What Is Short-Term Memory?" About.com Psychology. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2013.

Abstract

Does audience size affect short term memory? I had different audience sizes with the same ten test subjects. My hypothesis was that the audience size will cause a negative impact on a persons short term memory. That wasn't necessarily true, my projects data was very inconsistent.